


A Place For Everything and Everything In Its Place

by Satine89



Category: South Park
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mental Disintegration, Mental Institutions, Schizophrenia, Trans Female Character, Transgender, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-01-22 02:32:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1572881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satine89/pseuds/Satine89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyle Broflovski got his revenge on Eric Cartman - gave him a nervous breakdown so bad it sent him to a mental hospital, ad none of Kyle's other friends care. That's what they're saying around town, at school, in the streets. </p>
<p>They have it all wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is crazy dark, and it's going to get even darker, so let's get some general fic trigger warnings here. There's a lot of talk of mental disorders, in particular schizophrenia, as well as self-harm and foul language. Other trigger warnings will be added to chapter notes and the description as they become necessary.

At this point in his life, Kyle Broflovski knew the way to Eric Cartman's house by heart, the same way he knew the way to Stan Marsh's, and the McCormick house, and Butters' place. Even in the deep blue evening hours, with inky Darkness covering all of South Park in her blanket, the path was easy enough. Trudging through some slushy melting snow, Kyle ran through a mental list of things he needed for tonight. A toothbrush - that was in his little red backpack. Toothpaste - also in backpack. Change of clothes, underwear, pajamas - backpack, backpack, backpack. Kyle's snowboots made odd squishing noises as he continued to go through his checklist.

It all seemed so clandestine, sneaking out of his house this late at night despite having a much later curfew, not telling anyone where he was going, never to tell anyone where he'd been. Then again, Kyle and Cartman had sworn each other to secrecy on this one. No one else - no parents, no friends, no _Stan_ \- for some reason Cartman was adamant about that one - could know anything about this. It made sense. Probably better this way, Kyle reasoned as he avoided a particularly gross-looking patch of slush on the sidewalk. How much shit would be thrown on them if the neighborhood found out Kyle and Eric were fucking?

The whole thing started on accident. A few weeks prior, the two of them got into an argument over... something. Kyle didn't remember. It didn't matter. They fought about everything, from algebra answers to the best brand of deodorant to what needed to be done to resolve Russia's sudden intrusion into Ukraine. As always, they'd been in each other's faces the whole walk home, dragging each other along, grabbing at each other, gearing up for a physical fight in front of Eric's house, when that grabbing somehow turned into a very intense session of making-out inside his garage. Intense was the right word for it - there was biting and aroused insults to each others' persons, inbetween the barely-suppressed moans and groans of pleasure.

After staring at each other for a few hours after that initial burst of passion, they both agreed that they didn't feel quite as annoyed with each other. It did manage to purge some of their - they weren't fooling each other with all the bullshit they'd spouted. They were hormonal and horny, the combination of argument and sexuality was hot, and they didn't need a whole lot of reasons to start up a semi-exclusive hate-fucking arrangement.

Kyle stood in front of Cartman's house, smirking. Cartman was completely aggravating on a good day, still a prick... but Kyle was starting to maybe mildly enjoy Cartman's company. Wandering into the house through a back entrance leading to the kitchen, Kyle gingerly wandered up the stairs in the house, moving as quietly as possible. Liane probably wasn't in the house, but Kyle didn't want to risk her actually being around and asking why Kyle was there. She wasn't very perceptive, but your son's 'rival' breaking into your house would raise eyebrows.

When he reached Cartman's door, Kyle allowed himself a moment of calm. He'd been looking forward to this. It was weird to admit that, but they were both young. They had all the time in the world to figure out who was right for them. Right now, they just needed to get their hateful energies out, and this worked.

He pushed the door open, into pitch blackness and an odd silence. Kyle didn't waste much time.

"...dude, can I turn on a -"

"Leave." Cartman sounded more scared than normal.

Kyle snorted. "Your mom isn't even here." He should've checked, but there didn't seem to be much going on in the Cartman residence. "Or if she is, she's asleep. That was the whole point of -"

" _Leave!_ " Kyle quirked an eyebrow. He was used to Eric's little moods, mercurial and unpredictable, so he turned on the light.

And promptly staggered backwards, screaming.

\- - -

The paramedics called it a nervous breakdown.

They wanted to take Kyle with them to the hospital as well, but Kyle resisted, even in his state of shock. He stayed rooted to Eric's floor, eyes staring at a spot across the room. He felt like he couldn't move.

Cartman had been fine after school. That was six hours ago. Six hours ago, Eric was grinning like the loon he was, a dangerous glint in his eye, playing with the curls in Kyle's hair, saying that they were going to have a lot of fun tonight. In six hours, he'd lost enough to destroy his room and press himself into a corner with the fear of God in his eyes and a razorblade in his hand.

His arm was clawed up. Torn. Bleeding. Everywhere.

There was still blood everywhere.

Kyle couldn't move for hours.


	2. The Next Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eric couldn't pretend everything was fine anymore. It simply wasn't. It never had been fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted the first two chapters because I think the first one by itself is more of a teaser for the story proper. Here's the second chapter, I hope that the story's grabbed you at least a little!

Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kendra McCormick were all absent from classes the next day.

Weirdly, no one asked why Kyle was at Cartman's house at such a late hour. His friends were more concerned with the fact that Eric Cartman was currently situated in the local psych ward.

Kyle, Stan, and Kendra sat in the ward's lobby. Their parents were running in and out of the sitting room, giving the teenagers mild updates. None of them knew how to react to any of the news.

First it was that Eric was going to be okay. Only Kyle reacted, his pale features lightening and the images of Eric's blood all over his bedroom floor fading. Stan could only frown, since a psych ward seemed like the farthest from okay Eric had ever been; Kendra said nothing, as she usually did, pulling her long blonde hair behind her ears, still green with nausea and concern and confusion.

Then it was that Eric was saying someone attacked him. Kendra, in her defense, completely threw Kyle under the bus.

"He was in his room that night!" Kendra shrieked to her mother. It was obvious she was lashing out, afraid for her best friend and biggest supporter. Kendra's mother simply glared at her in response.

"It wasn't Kyle," Mrs. McCormick said in a cool tone before a nurse summoned her yet again - Liane was inconsolable yet again.

Kyle couldn't even muster up the energy to be mad at Kendra. All of the parents would see it as 'making sense'. Kendra was Eric's closest friend, and had been since before she'd started transitioning. Where other people threw up their hands with Cartman, Kendra would simply nod. They had a weird telepathic understanding with each other, something that went beyond normal friendship. It was like his relationship with Stan - the 'super best friend' relationship.

Kyle also didn't pitch a fit because he knew, somehow, this was his fault. It was just a feeling. A gut burst of guilt. 

Kyle tended to trust his instincts.

It was hours until they got a third piece of news, and none of the boys could make heads or tails of it.

"Schizophrenic?" Stan repeated after Kyle's father, the word sounding odd in his skeptical voice.

Gerald Broflovski, the bearer of the worst news yet, nodded. "Yes. The doctors are fairly certain, even though there are still some tests to run. If Eric does have schizophrenia, it would explain many things about... last night."

Kyle felt his cheeks redden involuntarily. He knew what his dad was insinuating - the schizophrenia wouldn't explain why his son was at Eric's house at ten o'clock at night. Gerald knew that, for friends, Kyle and Cartman were crazy with each other, angry and sarcastic and prodding and poking each other, pushing each other to the brink.

Maybe his dad thought he drove Eric insane.

"What things?" Stan asked. Kendra simply nodded, her way of letting curiosity be known.

"...well..." Gerald searched for the right words. "...we figured out who attacked him."

Kyle sat to attention. "And?"

"...Eric attacked himself. And he'd almost killed himself."

Stan was the only one who could talk in the immediate aftermath. Kendra's watery blue eyes widened to the size of plates and her lip quivered, looking away from Gerald as quickly as possible. Kyle already knew that Eric had attacked himself - _that razorblade was soaked in blood. Where did he even get the idea to do something like that? He'd always been fascinated with weapons as a kid, but still..._ \- and his dad saying it out loud only made it more real, more painful.

"He _lied?_ " Stan asked incredulously.

"No, he -" Gerald paused, searching for words again. It was weird for Kyle to see his father so tongue-tied. "...kids, this is a very complicated situation. Eric wasn't lying when he says someone attacked him. See, he... he saw a person that wasn't there. And that person -"

" - hurt him," Kyle finished, his cheeks going as green as Kendra's. Kendra sounded like she was crying into her parka sleeve.

Kyle's dad nodded at the teens. "...I wish I could tell you all that Eric will be okay and that you could see him now, but he's very shaken up. Ms. Cartman can't even see him right now. Eventually, all of us will be able to visit him, but for now, he's... well... he has to stay here. You kids might as well get home. We can call you all if anything happens. Kendra, your mother says to make your sister dinner. Kyle, please make sure Ike is okay. Stan, Shelley is still at college, but we've called her and told her what's happening, and she knows to call your parents here if she has questions."

There was little else for the three teens to do but leave. Getting up solemnly, and letting Kendra have some time to calm herself, they started the long trek home.

They all had very obvious questions for each other, but they went unasked.

\- - -

Eric hadn't slept in forty hours.

He couldn't. Every time he tried closing his eyes, that horrible sugary voice jolted him out of his drowsiness and made him grab at his bandaged arm. He could've _died_. Eric Cartman was not the kind of person to just give up and _die_ , and this motherfucker almost brought him to it. And now? Now that asshole wouldn't let him sleep.

The nurses offered to induce sleep in him, bring him drugs that would knock him out, but Eric was so scatterbrained that he couldn't tell, now, if he'd imagined those offers, or if they were illusions, fantasies of his deluded mind.

Eric couldn't pretend everything was fine anymore. It simply wasn't. It never had been fine. Everything had started to blend together a few years ago - maybe even before that - real and half-real and somewhat true and maybe false and everything in-between became a frothy soup in his head. It didn't matter how smart he was, he couldn't tell if a stuffed animal was telling him something in a store, or if someone had hit a button on it to make it talk.

The only real things he knew were his friends. There was Stan, the rabble-rousing activist with Wendy, the rabble-rousing activist girlfriend, destined to get on some hippie boat for Greenpeace someday. There was Butters, the constantly grounded, who channeled all of his existential rage into making cupcakes for everyone on earth, and would certainly open a cupcake store and probably become a Food Network cupcake chef. There was Kendra, his best friend since pre-K, the only person who really got where he was coming from, the most badass bitch on earth and no one would ever dare forget it.

And then there was Kyle. Dear sweet vicious heartbreaking awful perfect Kyle, with his freckled skin and thin lips and screeching voice and practiced nonchalance.

"You forgot someone," a syrupy-sweet voice whispered in his ear.

Eric felt his eyes bulge out of their sockets.

He didn't realize he was screaming bloody murder until a cadre of nurses burst into his room to restrain him and finally - _finally_ \- put him to sleep.


	3. second-hand news

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But he was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank everyone who's read this so far - I hope you're enjoying it! This chapter is, thankfully, less dramatic and not quite as mentally scarring as the first two, so have a bit of a breather, on me. Feel free to leave feedback and concrit and kudos and whatever else you want, I love that.

The rumours started instantly.

Kyle tried to insulate himself, he really did. Legally, he was cleared. No one could take that away from him. Eric had stabbed himself, admitted to doing that, and was locked up like a common murderer and dear God it ate at Kyle, the idea of him being able to invite him over and touch him in that weirdly tender way of his hours before slicing up his arm and trying to bleed himself out, a stuck pig, bleeding out because of a voice in his head -

Kyle breathed again. Some of the cheerleaders walked past him, gaping at him before gossiping in hushed tones, like he wouldn't know what they were saying. He ignored them, instead staring at the high school he'd gone to for three and a half years.

He hadn't driven Eric crazy.

But their history certainly made it look like that.

Stan and Wendy, standing next to him, couldn't help but stare at Kyle as well. They'd just watched him stop breathing, after all. Kyle needed to look less like a shell-shocked widow and more like his usual self, cool, collected.

"If you aren't ready, you can go home. Kendra's not coming to school today," Wendy offered in a sweet voice. She hadn't said much about Eric's condition, or Eric in general. She wasn't the type to let her very negative feelings on the matter interfere with anyone else's coping process. That being said, Kyle could tell that she knew something was up. She was too perceptive, and always had been.

"...I can't miss any more school," Kyle said.

"You're green as shit dude," Stan pointed out helpfully.

Kyle sighed. True as that may be... "I just know what's gonna start happening."

The couple nodded, pausing a moment, trying to verbalize something that couldn't be verbalized, before leaving Kyle be, walking into school together, hands woven together. Neither of them had asked him any questions, or commented on the weirdness of everything - why were none of his friends, or his family, questioning why he was with Cartman that night?

Kyle felt like he should go into school.

He wanted to turn on his heel and run to Eric.

But school.

Kyle sighed once more, walking onto the campus. With every step, he heard whispers, accusations following him through the halls, piercing his heart. Unprotected.

He usually walked into school with his friends. With Kendra, hood pulled over her messy blonde hair, sucking on a lollipop because she couldn't smoke inside. With her girlfriend Bebe, who tossed her curls over her shoulder wherever she went, bombing up the place like she owned it. With Stan and Wendy, and their chatter about world events, their familiar voices soothing and inviting.

With Eric.

Who needed him. And Kendra. And Stan. And _everyone._

But they were divided, splintered off from each other, processing, grieving, blanking out.

Kyle wanted to tell someone how uneasy he felt, surrounded by students' eyes, dark and accusatory. They took one look at him and began to gossip with their silvery tongues.

But he was alone.

\- - -

Kendra and Bebe weren't even at school.

Playing hooky was a specialty of the couple. Whenever the urge hit them, they'd bail, getting into Bebe's crappy subcompact car and drive somewhere, anywhere. They were two badass blonde bitches, doing whatever they wanted, and that was the way they liked it.

They'd been together for a long time, long enough to know that they weren't even remotely ready to show their faces at school right now, though. There wasn't going to be a whole lot of laughter today.

Most people didn't have the relationship with Cartman that Kendra did. Bebe knew that, and respected it, even if she didn't care much for the teen herself. Sometimes she was even grateful for Eric, aggravating as he could be.

Kendra had been transitioning since junior high, going from the small blonde leering male Kenny to the scrawny blonde leering female Kendra before everyone's eyes. Bebe hadn't lied then, and she wouldn't lie hard - being there for Kendra through it all was difficult. She'd fallen in love with a man, and when that man turned out not to be a man, she felt like she had to give up.

But she couldn't. Bebe loved Kendra too much to let her go when she needed her most.

Kendra was struggling with it all. Bebe didn't have a clue until much later that, of all people, Eric was the only one who hadn't questioned Kendra's motives, or asked her invasive questions about her body and her sexuality, or... done _anything_ , really. Apparently, after Kendra told him, all he did was say, "kewl. Have you played the new Chinpokomon game?" And they went on playing video games and smoking in the playground's unisex bathroom after school and being the same old gritty, grimy friends they always had been.

Eric helped Kendra. Bebe, lounging on Kendra's couch and watching her girlfriend with a pained expression, knew that being unable to help Eric now was killing her. It was obvious in the way she held her cigarette in a vice grip, the way she stared grimly into space.

"Kendra..." Bebe began.

Kendra looked up with a jolt. "Hmm?"

Bebe frowned. "...can we go visit Cartman?"

Kendra shook her head. "Not yet. They had to sedate him last night. That's what Dad said." Kendra was always quiet, but every word seemed to break her. It was odd - Kendra defied death at all turns, laughing at it and flipping off the Devil himself, but all it took was Eric almost dying for her to question mortality again.

"I know you want to help him," Bebe said. "And when we can, we will."

"...I just... I mean, we knew he was _hurting_ but not like that. I had no idea."

"You couldn't -"

"Yes. Yes I could," Kendra interjected irritably. "His imaginary friends? The way he thought the world was out to get him? All those paranoid conspiracy theories about 9/11 and turds in the toilet bowl and stealing votes and the way he killed his dolls and the Kardashians and Mitch Connor?!" Kendra buried her face in her arms. Bebe scooted as close to her as possible, rubbing her back.

"...that's hindsight talking," Bebe said gently. "Kendra, we just need to help him. Not blame ourselves."

Kendra sniffled before looking up. "...is it sad that I can't... I don't even want to be at school until he's there?"

Bebe shook her head.

"Don't be jealous," Kendra suddenly added.

"Oh trust me, I am not," Bebe said emphatically. What was there to be jealous of? Eric was... you know, Eric. Not attractive. Kendra sure knew how to pick friends. There was her, the two most unattractive guys in South Park, and a granola boy with his granola girl girlfriend. How did they even function?

...apparently they didn't. Bebe's face darkened a little. Had she really just thought that? God.

"I know you aren't like that with him," Bebe finally elaborated. "And I know that Eric... well."

Kendra smiled a bit at that. Bebe kissed her cheek gently before standing up.

"If we're ditching school, we might as well go shopping." Running her fingers through her hair, she grinned. "We can buy Cartman something. Like a hat. He likes hats, right? I know that motherfucker loves hats. We can buy him a beanie and get off our asses. It's a win-win. C'mon, Kendra."

Kendra couldn't help but grin at Bebe's enthusiasm, and got up. They couldn't stop the world, no. But they could make the passage of time hurt a little less.


	4. tee hee hee.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well, once we can talk to him, I'm sure he'll start explaining things," Butters mused. "...or maybe not. Gosh, I never know with him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there was a delay in getting this chapter out - work kinda kicked me in the ass these past few weeks. I'm hoping to be able to update weekly from now on. 
> 
> Also, trigger warning alert. We have some rape overtones and some gore in this chapter.

"What'd you do to him, Kyle?"

Kyle ducked the question Craig threw at him as he darted off the high school campus.

Three days. That's how long it took for Kyle to finally break.

He was being _applauded_ for breaking Cartman's mind. Kyle could feel it, in the way people stared at him and whispered. It was like he was the new king on campus, the one who'd saved all the munchkins from a red-jacketed witch. Everyone who mattered told him to pay no mind - from Stan to Ike to Bebe to the principal - but they had no way of knowing about the guilt destroying Kyle, inside and out. They all looked at him with pity. They got that he'd lost someone important to him, but at the same time, their dull-eyed stares told Kyle, for certain, that they had no idea how much Eric meant to him.

Kyle wanted to see Eric. Needed to see him. Needed to know there was hope for him.

Every pent-up everything ached in Kyle as he walked home, taking a road that meandered past the Cartman house. The house was still, lights off, Liane's car gone. She doted on her son, even now, and she couldn't see him yet.

Kyle wondered if he could go into Eric's room. He knew how to get in through the back door, and how to bypass the lock. He could pretend Eric was there, or at least coming home soon from school, just like him. He could set a table for a tea party ( _his imaginary friends probably were trying to attack him now, destroy him over scones and sugar_ ). He could peel off his clothes and lie on the bed in his boxers, pretending there was someone who wanted to see his freckled body ( _"leave!" he yelled, loud enough to shake Kyle to the core_ ). He could make sure the blood was gone. He could wipe it clean himself, and maybe then he wouldn't feel like everything was collapsing in on -

"Kyle?"

Kyle turned around, stricken to see Butters.

Great. Ender's other "best friend". Butters had been remarkably sedate about this whole affair, something that just made Kyle seethe.

"Oh no, Kyle," Butters murmured. At least now he sounded hurt. "Are you all right?"

Kyle wanted to lie, snap at him, say something about the way he'd been walking around just mildly depressed... but Kyle realized, touching his own cheek, that he was sobbing.

Butters' mouth formed a grim line. "...let's get you somewhere good."

\- - -

'Somewhere good' was Kyle's home. Ike was at hockey practice, and his father was at work, leaving Butters with Kyle and his mother. Sheila looked as haggard as Kyle felt, sipping tea quietly in the kitchen and giving her son a small greeting as Butters fiddled with the Broflovski's living room television, saying soothing sweet nothings. Kyle curled into the couch, eyes glassy and rimmed red from crying.

"It must be hard," Butters noted, "even without people like Craig going and saying you 'won'." He found a Disney movie to put into the DVD player, deep in the recesses of the Broflovski movie cabinet. Kyle couldn't remember the last time he'd watched a Disney movie. Bebe and Kendra watched them all the time. "You just care about him and people make it into a mean ting. That's what kids like Craig do. They... they don't get it. But other people get it, Kyle. Don't let them get you down."

Kyle wasn't focused much on most of what he said. "Do you get it?"

Sheila moved around in the kitchen a bit as Butters closed the DVD player's drawer.

"...I know you wouldn't hurt anyone like that," Butters said cryptically.

Kyle frowned. "Why isn't anyone asking -?"

"We know better," Butters responded. He waited until he sat down on the couch beside Kyle to speak again, his voice a whisper. "Why else would you visit anyone that late at night? We didn't want to... you know. Start talking about your private life with you all upset."

"Eric told."

"He didn't have to," Butters responded quickly, trying to dull the edge in Kyle's tone. He serenely smiled, starting up 'The Little Mermaid' and settling into the couch.

Kyle sighed. "...he didn't want me to tell anyone."

"Well, once we can talk to him, I'm sure he'll start explaining things," Butters mused. "...or maybe not. Gosh, I never know with him."

That didn't ease Kyle's mind in the slightest, but at least his friends knew that he wasn't trying to murder them all. Even if it was just Butters using the royal 'we', and no one else in his group understood, that made at least one person who knew he wasn't trying to kill Eric.

Two, actually, if the uneasy silence from the kitchen meant anything.

\- - -

"Stop talking to me."

Eric was adamant on this. He'd gotten rest, the doctors were running tests on him, and at some point, he'd start getting treatment. If all went well, he'd be able to see his friends again, something he really yearned for.

And this fucker wasn't going to ruin it for him.

'This fucker' was everything Eric was not. Eric was still overweight, with wiry cinnamon-colored hair that never styled right and awkward facial expressions and broad shoulders and the list went on and on. This other man, maybe real, maybe imaginary, tamed that hair and put it beneath a stylish fedora. He was thin, the kind of thing that wore skinny jeans and made girls swoon. But the awkward facial expressions - Eric shared those with his erstwhile mental nemesis.

The other, prettier boy inspected his nails, overdramatically bored. "Oh Eric. What a mean thing to say to your lover."

Eric's eye twitched. "No. You aren't _real._ "

"Eriiiiiiiic. I thought I was your sparkly ray of sunshine!" The thin teenager sprawled himself out on the floor of the padded cell, crossing his legs and staring up at Eric's bed. Eric was doing everything in his power to ignore the teen. He wasn't real.

"You used to call me your sparkly ray of sunshine," the teenager whined before his angelic features darkened. "Before _he_ came along."

Eric ignored the obvious baiting comment. "You. Are. _Not._ _Real._ "

Suddenly, the other teen was on top of Eric, pinning him back to his bed. The teen's fingers against Eric's wrists sure _felt_ real, but... Eric couldn't get like this. He had to get rid of this guy.

Adjusting his legs to straddle Eric, the lithe imaginary boy sighed. "It's like you forgot what you told me years ago - people who are the same belong together."

"Kyle and I -"

"And _we are the same,_ " the other teen pressed, his face mere inches from Eric's.

All Eric could say, in his shock, in his desperation not to have a repeat of their last interaction -

_"If I can't have you, no. One. Will. ERIC!"_

\- was, "Cupid-Me... we can't do this here."

Cupid-Me, his face flushed with frustration, narrowed his eyes. "Here."

Eric thanked whatever weird God was out there for his ability to think fast. "A psych ward. There's people everywhere. They'll see us."

"They wouldn't understand," Cupid-Me responded, agreeing in his own twisted way, finally getting off of Eric. Eric's thighs hurt from being pinned and straddled, but it could've been much worse. He didn't let out the sigh of relief he'd been holding in for what seemed like hours.

Eric's arm twinged as he watched Cupid-Me stalk to the opposite end of the cell, boots making soft indents in the cushioned floor.

_Eric couldn't bring himself to scream, he was so shocked by the razor blade in Cupid-Me's hand. He was even more shocked when the teenager cut him open, still making nary a peep. It wouldn't help. His mother was asleep downstairs. If she saw this - saw the tissue and blood oozing down his wrist - saw Cupid-Me -_

"They'd try to keep us apart," Cupid-Me intoned darkly, "if they knew about me."

That's what Eric was hoping for, but he didn't say anything.

_The blood seeped onto the carpet in spurts, spraying his shirt. Eric's breath came out in short shallow gasps, his stomach in knots as Cupid-Me approached him again, eyes heavily lidded with an entirely inappropriate lust._

_Cupid-Me leaned down next to him, looking at the wound he'd caused with a bizarre tenderness. "Oh, Eric..."_

_Taking Eric's arm, he licked some of the blood off of Eric's wound._

_Eric's whole body ran cold._

Eric wanted everyone to keep him as far away from Cupid-Me as possible. That's what he needed to happen.


	5. selfish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We all saw it coming."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone for reading! This chapter was very hard to write, and you'll see why fairly quicky. XD

"Let's bust him out."

Stan, Wendy, Kendra, Bebe, and Butters gaped at Kyle from beneath their claimed tree in the back of the school's quad.

They'd all taken to avoiding populated areas, just to give Kyle some peace. Kyle dealt with losing Eric extremely poorly - crying at Disney movies, constantly on the razor's edge with Craig constantly calling him an 'ogre killer' and Token just kind of blankly agreeing and people whispering about him in the halls, wandering by his house when he thought no one was watching him, barely speaking to anyone... they were definitely hysterical coping methods, especially for someone's sworn enemy.

And now this.

Kendra narrowed her eyes at Kyle. "...bust him out. Kyle, it's not prison. We can't give him spoons and a titty poster and tell him to dig through the walls.

Wendy nodded in agreement. "He needs to  be there."

"We haven't seen him in a week," Kyle protested. "What if they're deliberately hiding him from us?"

A long silence ensued.

Stan finally coughed, breaking the tension. "...Kyle, take a walk with me."

The two of them left the tree and headed for the running track. A few energetic workout freaks ran the track during lunch; on the bleachers, some vamp kids shared the latest supernatural romance book with each other while drinking tomato juice. Stan and Kyle quietly got onto the clay track, sneakers kicking up orange dust instantly.

"...Kyle, I get that you're not having an easy time of this," Stan began. Again, no mention of the biggest elephant in the room. Kyle nodded, so Stan continued. "That being said... what the actual fuck, man?"

Kyle glared at his best friend, scandalized. "Stan, what -?"

"You really think that a wacky adventure is going to help?" Stan asked. "Cartman needs serious help!"

"I'm telling you, what if they're hiding him from -"

"Kyle, we aren't idiots," Stan abruptly interjected. "We know you and him are... well, I mean..."

Kyle felt his face glowing crimson, both from rage and the sudden outing. "Are _what_?" If Stan got into his vomit-in-front-of-romance thing right now, Kyle would snap.

"...in love."

Kyle paused. Stan looked pretty serious about what he'd said. Kyle could only blankly stare back at him, the breath sucked out of his throat. After a moment, he closed his eyes and broke his gaze.

"I don't love him."

Stan didn't look relieved at all, like Kyle expected. In fact, his face grew even more stoic, steely eyes narrowing.

"Kyle. Seriously. None of us care."

"I don't."

"We all saw it coming -"

"I'm not -"

"And neither of you have ever been good at _hiding_ your emotions -"

"It's just _sex_ -"

" - and seeing you all beat up  is painful, but -"

" _I don't love him!"_ Kyle screamed.

It was loud enough to attract the attention of Jenny Simons, expert crossfitter, as she dashed past the two boys.

Stan took a long, hard look at Kyle. Kyle's face burned, eyes stinging, his heart hammering away in his chest.

It was just guilt making him this upset about everything. Not love. It was his fault, after all, that Eric was like this. He was not in love with Cartman.

Stan sighed. "Okay, I'll just come right out and say it, then. You're a selfish asshole."

Kyle felt his chest sting anew. "What?"

"You want to bust a mentally ill person out of a mental hospital to... to fuck him. Not to even love him, to just bang him. Or whatever you're doing." Stan clearly believed Kyle loved Eric, with the way he disdainfully referred to Kyle's 'fucking'. "And that is literally the most selfish thing I've ever heard."

"Do you know how much this hurts?" Kyle asked, unsure where he was going with this.

Stan sighed again. The look he gave Kyle was odd... almost pitying. Walking away from him, he said, "Enough for you to suggest something this stupid."

Kyle wanted to demand that Stan get his ass back over there, with him. They'd fought before. They usually made up. Usually. After a long, drawn-out, painful process where they avoided each other and Eric and Kendra got all annoyed at them. Come to think of it, Eric and Kendra were usually important to their reforming process. Eric was...

Kyle grit his teeth. He wasn't going to lose someone else this -

Both Kyle and Stan's phones went off at the same time. Stan's made a generic 'ping' noise; Kyle's, a trill from a Bruno Mars song.

Kyle's desperate words went unsaid. He grabbed his phone from out of his pocket. A message from Liane Cartman?

Kyle's heart swooped in his chest.

Stan read the text aloud, from his own phone. "Eric will be able to see people tomorrow."


End file.
